VIASPACE Press Release

VIASPACE Subsidiary Wins $786,000 US Navy Contract

10/21/2008

VIASPACE Subsidiary Wins $786,000 U.S. Navy Contract

PASADENA, CA, USA.- October 21, 2008-VIASPACE Inc. (OTCBB: VSPC) subsidiary Ionfinity has been awarded a $786,000 Phase II contract for its proposal entitled "Miniature Electronic Sniffer for Navy Vertical Take off Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (VTUAVs)" by the Navy's Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Program. This competitively selected two year contract will result in a field demonstration of high sensitivity detection and analysis capability for chemical, explosive, and illegal drug residues in the holds and storage bays of suspect vessels. In addition to developing products for the $55 Billion security industry, the new sensor technology is expected to have commercial applications in environmental monitoring, agriculture and medicine.

Ionfinity's contract is to develop a sensitive miniaturized sniffer through a joint collaboration with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, General Dynamics, Sionex, and Imaginative Technologies. This chemical sensor system consists of a new and powerful detector called a Differential Mobility Spectrometer, a novel "soft-ionization" method that does not fragment or multiply-ionize sampled specimens, and a micro-gas chromatograph for confirmation and enhanced detection capability all integrated into a compact stand-alone system. The goal of the effort is to demonstrate detection of chemical, explosive, and illegal drug residues in the holds and storage bays of suspect vessels. The device will detect chemicals and materials of interest at ppb levels after 6 seconds. The sensor will be completely self contained with respect to power and communications and only physically attach to the VTUAV for lowering into or on to the vessel of interest.

Ionfinity Chief Operating Officer, and Principal Investigator for this effort, James Weiss, reports, "This new sensor will change the paradigm used for future chemical detection and analysis, making it much more convenient, sensitive, selective and timely."

About VIASPACE: Originally founded in 1998 with the objective of transforming proven space and defense technologies from NASA and the Department of Defense into hardware and software solutions that solve today's complex problems, VIASPACE benefits from important patent and software licenses from Caltech, which manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. For more information, please visit our website at www.VIASPACE.com, or contact for Investor Relations, Dr. Jan Vandersande, Director of Communications at 800-517-8050, or IR@VIASPACE.com.

Press contact: Carl Kukkonen 626-768-3360 -----------------------------This news release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements relate to future events or our future performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Such factors include the risks outlined in our periodic filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-KSB, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2007, as well as general economic and business conditions, the ability to acquire and develop specific projects and technologies, the ability to fund operations, changes in consumer and business consumption habits, and other factors over which VIASPACE has little or no control.